Sometimes it’s hard to celebrate your birthday when you’re so far away from home, your family and your friends so the Crank staff decided to throw Lasse a surprise party at Lava Bar. Radek was working the night shift at The Warehouse and Charlyn was tonight’s night porter at the hostel so we had to make it short and sweet.

Radek, Charlyn, Nina, Nynke and I headed to Lava Bar at around 10:30 pm to make sure we arrived before Lasse. This was the first time I’d been out in Rotorua, and to be honest, I wasn’t especially impressed by the joint. I know we were pretty early, but there weren’t many people, the music was downright atrocious and the drinks were expensive (although the price of New Zealand drinks are just outrageous in general).

We were supposed to surprise Lasse at 11 pm when he arrived with some other friends. As we waited for the birthday boy to arrive, we all got a round of drinks to pass the time. The music leaned more toward top 40 pop with a mix of techno. Bleh! I looked around the room and felt utterly and completely too old for this. I don’t think I’d start making this a habit.

When Lasse finally arrived (to spare my ears from being assaulted by bad music), we sang him “Happy Birthday.” He seemed shocked to see us there. Guess this was one successful surprise party.